Getting Beyond Reproach

Whenever I say or do something unskillful, my first hope is that no one notices. Hat trick. But let’s say that happens - no one notices. What then? Then, I have to notice. And I need to call myself out. With humor, hopefully – after all, this 'being human' is an imperfect thing - but yes, call me out.

This means that until the day I’m no longer unskillful, which is probably not ever coming, I won’t get beyond reproach.

Which feels cringey. But also, true, and like a relief.

Transcript

Good morning or good afternoon.

Hello everyone,

It's Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 432.

Today I want to explore whether it's possible to get beyond reproach on whether we even want to.

In the places that scare you,

Pema Chodron basically says no.

And so it's near the end of the book and she's talking about the five strengths that she wants us to cultivate to be fully on the bodhisattva path.

And they are strong determination,

Familiarity with the path,

Cultivation of the bodhisattva qualities,

Reproach,

And the aspiration to relieve suffering and for wisdom and compassion to increase.

So she's got that right in there.

It's one of the five strengths,

Reproach.

So let's look at these strong determination on the bodhisattva path.

I think it's not so different from that same quality in the law.

It's a quality that we develop when we bump into difficult moments.

So at work,

It could be a moment when I realized I don't know something I thought I did,

Or I missed an element of the case,

Or it could be a moment when I've done everything right and I get outmaneuvered or maybe somebody calls me out.

So this happens and the determination that we summon,

Here's our reproach slide.

The determination that we summon is not the determination to sweep the thing under the rug,

To deny,

Run away,

Defend,

Blame,

Right?

It's the determination to stay in the moment of anxiety,

Shame,

Confusion,

Frustration,

Dismay,

Whatever is happening.

Whatever is happening.

And maybe we shake our heads at ourselves,

But we're not self-critical,

We're self-compassionate because we remember our humanity.

We're imperfect.

So is everyone else.

And even as we acknowledge that our profession demands nothing short of total perfectionism,

We remember that's impossible.

And then we fix the thing.

Determination and mindfulness practice,

Not different.

It's the commitment to stay with whatever is happening,

No matter how incredibly uncomfortable I feel.

So I say or do something unkind,

I commit a microaggression and it gets pointed out to me,

Or I see it myself,

And I don't deny or run away or defend or blame.

I'm honest with myself and I demand a kind of leveling up from myself in a nice way,

Right?

And I'm determined to see,

To own,

To apologize,

To make amends,

To do better next time.

I mean,

I feel like I'm doing that a lot these days,

Especially in the territory of microaggressions,

Saying and doing things I don't realize causes harm.

And of course,

Always remembering,

We all have to remember that it's not about our intention,

It's about our impact.

And then having to stay in that place of chagrin because,

Yeah,

Once again,

I've hurt someone.

And the determination to see this and apologize and learn from my mistakes and do better next time.

So that's determination.

And then familiarity with the path.

Familiarity is when we take mindfulness to heart or into our hearts,

Maybe is a better way of saying it.

So in the cases above,

In the law or in life,

Familiarity with the path,

It's getting beneath embarrassment and shame and anger and blame or whatever threatens to take me out of the present moment,

That moment that Pema calls having just been nailed,

Right?

And then seeing two things.

The first is,

This is a moment of suffering.

I'm embarrassed,

I'm ashamed,

I'm frustrated,

Maybe with myself,

Just seeing that.

And the second is remembering I'm not alone.

Every single one of us says and does unskillful things,

We're in this boat together,

It's a leaky boat.

So there's a commonality here of sorrow,

Really.

We're experiencing suffering,

We're causing it.

We're in this thing called being human together.

Third quality,

Cultivation,

Exactly what it says.

It's remembering to look and see and lift up the positive moments.

And I don't mean the Yahoo moments when I get the big win,

But the skill moments when I see what's happened and apologize,

Or when I catch myself before I cause harm even better,

Right?

It's easy for me to forget to do this.

I forget to observe my own goodness,

Whether it's something big-ish like teaching a class and the students are benefiting.

I forget to take that in.

Or small like making dinner and it's good,

It tastes good.

Or something really tiny like letting somebody into my lane on the highway,

Right?

And even if all I'm doing is smiling at someone on the street or in the market,

The important thing is to notice the goodness,

To lift it up for ourselves.

And in this way to let it log itself into our brains,

Into our neural circuitry so that that neural pathway becomes deeper and wider and it's easier to go in that direction more automatically the next time.

So reproach,

This is the interesting one,

I think.

Do you remember the last time someone spoke to you with reproach?

You know,

It's those how could you words and the implication behind it that you should be ashamed.

Someone just spoke to me this way recently and I felt terrible.

You know,

I really did.

I felt ashamed which is what they were going for,

Definitely what they were going for,

You know.

But Pamela was suggesting something a little different which makes sense to me and because I don't imagine her suggesting we should walk around feeling ashamed.

But she is saying we need to reproach ourselves and we need to do it with humor.

And maybe she'd say,

I don't know,

Loving reproach.

Because again,

We do stuff,

We say stuff,

It causes harm or it's just not what we should be doing.

So she's saying when that happens,

Call yourself out.

So for me that looks like,

Judy,

Come on.

Again,

Not remembering this thing that is now something that you really need to be paying attention to.

The other day I named in mindfulness practice returning to the breath in a loving way as if placing a newborn in a mother's arms.

And I didn't say a parent's arms.

And that was really hurtful to families who there isn't a mother,

There's only another parent,

Right?

And so saying to myself,

Not remembering that not every family includes a mother,

I did that again.

I've done that before,

I did it again.

Or saying to myself,

Judy,

Really again,

With that edge in your voice,

That frustration,

That stressed out lawyer voice again,

Right?

So Pema tells this great story about this that if you didn't have a chance to look at this chapter,

There was a monk named Geshe Ben and he's invited to dinner by his patron.

And after dinner,

He gets left alone in the dining room and there's this big bag of flour.

And so he takes out a cup and he puts his hand into the bag to scoop up a bunch of flour to take back with him maybe to the monastery.

And then with,

This is what Pema says,

With his hand in the bag,

He says,

Ben,

Look what you're doing.

And then he shouts,

Thief,

Thief.

And his patrons rush in to find him standing there,

His hand still in the flour,

Yelling,

I've caught him,

I've caught him.

I've caught the thief red-handed,

Right?

So I love that story.

It's this way that we can work with reproach,

With a sense of humor,

Self-reproach with a sense of humor.

And then the fifth quality is the aspiration to end suffering.

And Pema is not talking about all the ways she's already talked about that.

She's saying,

Looks easier than it is.

So I might know someone is in distress,

But do I always try to help?

If I'm being honest,

No,

Not always.

Sometimes I turn away.

I'm busy.

I'm afraid to get too close.

I'm frustrated that the person got themselves into whatever situation it is and there's nothing I can do.

Of course,

There's always something I can do because I can always just be compassionate towards them.

So she reminds us of how helpful it is to see this quality of thinking we have the aspiration to end suffering and then not really having it.

Yesterday,

I was in Berkeley.

Someone approached me outside the market with a street sheet,

Which is the newspaper in the Bay Area that shares news about the unhoused,

And it's sold by that population or it's offered by that population in return for a donation.

And so they asked me if I wanted a street sheet.

And I said,

No,

I was in a hurry and I didn't have any cash.

And that whole like conversation in my head.

And I went,

Wait,

I just wrote this talk.

What am I doing?

And so I doubled back and I asked the person to wait and I rifled around in my glove box and I found a five and I gave it to her and I'm not sharing this because I'm so great.

I did this great thing.

Woohoo.

I'm sharing it because I said no.

And then there was that moment of reproach.

Of course,

I had also just read the chapter and written the talk,

But maybe it sticks a little bit and aspiration kicked in and it might not have also,

Right?

Because this being human is not easy.

So we're all just here for a minute.

The question is in that minute,

Can we be determined to cultivate a kind of solid and durable aspiration to end suffering or at least to reduce it for one person?

So let's sit.

So finding your posture for today,

Whatever that is,

Whatever posture you want to take right now that will be supportive of your practice of your being able to look into this aspiration to end suffering.

One of my friends,

Dear friends and teachers,

Co-teacher in our teacher training program,

Which we just had the first intensive last weekend.

So I'm still really feeling the,

Yeah,

The power of that.

And he was saying,

Yeah,

Just have the aspiration to reduce suffering for one person today,

Just one person.

So seeing if in our practice right now,

We can locate that aspiration.

Maybe your heart is a little bit open or maybe the mind is a little bit soft.

Maybe in taking these few minutes together to let go of all the busyness,

The to-do list,

There's this sense of peace and that's what you have to pass along today to someone.

That would not be a small thing.

Sometimes it's helpful to recollect a kind word or kindness that we offered in the past,

Yesterday,

Last week.

Where are we already doing this?

Because we undoubtedly are.

We're here practicing together.

So we are undoubtedly offering kindness in the world just by being here,

Cultivating that together.

And it's considered very skillful to recollect our own goodness.

The Galway poem,

St.

Francis and the Sow,

Where he says,

Sometimes we have to reteach a thing,

It's loveliness.

So can we recollect our own loveliness,

Our own kindness,

Our own aspiration to end suffering for just one person,

Just one day.

Remembering the good and also remembering we're not necessarily trying to get beyond our approach,

But we are taking a sense of humor with us.

Yeah,

We're humans.

We're going to mess up and we're doing such a good thing by paying attention to that,

By having the intention to pay attention and to do better.

And we're doing such a good thing by remembering the good and also remembering we're not necessarily trying to get beyond our approach,

But we are doing such a good thing.

Thank you so much,

Everyone,

For practicing together today and for being here on the wake-up call.

And take good care.

Be safe out there.

I'll see you next Thursday.